Facilitating Innovation in the Federal Statistical System Summary of a Workshop (2011) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 1-8
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It includes traditional subjects of innovation, such as improvements in survey design and data collection procedures, including editing and imputation for missing and incorrect data in surveys and administrative records. And it also includes those less usually considered, such as questions about the usefulness of federal statistics to policy officials and whether new approaches to bridge the interface between users and statisticians are required.
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From the opposite perspective, is there a danger in straying too far in the direction of approximate answers and away from the traditional rigor of statistically valid information collections? Given these questions and the evolving ways of gathering information, what kinds and extent of innovation are needed for the federal statistical system to be able to play an appropriate role in meeting the needs of the public and policy makers for high-quality, timely, and relevant statistics to address new and changing social issues and questions?
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discipline and the difficulties confronting individual agencies in keeping current with best practice in IT regarding data collection, processing, estimation, and dissemination, all the while protecting data confidentiality. It was envisioned that the workshop would include invited presentations and discussions to consider these challenges and the potential to address them.
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; models for small-area estimates of poverty; fully outfitted, mobile medical testing facilities for the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey; and the development of a generalized and integrated data warehouse by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to provide easy access to historical survey and census data
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Constance Citro (Committee on National Statistics) pointed out that, although it is rare indeed for businesses to reinvent themselves, and even rarer for government agencies to do so, the data needs and the chal lenges to provide for such needs are growing.
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The first is the ever more difficult environment that data collection organizations face. For example, because of increasing resistance to survey participation, the Census Bureau has said it would be a significant accomplishment if the mail return rate for the 2010 census equaled that of 2000.
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• I t is important for at least a subset of the agencies to work on spe cific innovation projects while discussion proceeds on the larger issue of innovation in the federal statistical system. • T he federal statistical system could consider a cross-cutting cen tralized research approach, although with each agency having the ability to retain local creativity.
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